


Broken Drum

by jonny_vrm (elmo_loves_me)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-11
Updated: 2006-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-09 23:06:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmo_loves_me/pseuds/jonny_vrm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I don't know what to do."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Drum

**Author's Note:**

> I kept imagining what John would be like when he heard Dean's message during S1 _Home_, and how Dean was when he phoned John. Miserable, unsure, on the edge of tears... broken. They both were. So, yeah, this fic. Kind of my first attempt at anything ever, so.

"I don't know what to do."

Dean's voice came through tinny and soft on John's cell, a faint hiss muting the gruff cadence over miles of space, a satellite, and back. John swallowed, feeling the muscles of his throat working one by one as he tried to choke back his immediate urge to call Dean, to talk to his sons, his warriors, his _babies_.

"Whatever you're doing, if you could get here…"

If only Dean knew he was already home, just a gallon of gas away, probably less. John's hand came up and scrubbed at his face, his beard bristling under rough fingers. It was too soon, too soon.

Dean's voice broke on the next word, and the next.

"Please."

John let his knees fold under him, dropping onto Missouri's couch, his forehead falling into his hand as the weight of his thoughts dragged him down. He was a drowning man in his own right, the flow of his regret more than enough of a substitute for the uncharted waters of any river.

"I need your help, dad."

There was a pause, and John clung to the sound of Dean's uneven breathing at the other end of the line before it disconnected, both too early and too late for John Winchester. A crisp, mechanical female voice leapt to life, asking his preference. Delete his son? Save his son? Play his son again? John let the hand holding the cell sag, the recording's words becoming unintelligible as he pressed the earpiece to his thigh.

"God Dean, I… I want to help you. I do. But you and Sammy in that house, I – your mother, she was – she'll be there. And I can't deal with that, Dean. I won't."

_Too soon_, he thought again, and he hoped it was, because if he was wrong about this… if his gut was guiding him into the quicksand instead of onto the path for the first time in the last 22 years, then he would never forgive himself.

His babies –

He would _never_ forgive himself.

END

**Author's Note:**

> (Read the story on LJ [HERE](http://jonny-vrm.livejournal.com/951.html).)


End file.
